From The New Hebrides To

The Reluctant Consul

Cecil Rhodes' Empire

Concluding the Story of Romilly, by Lew Friday.

N the 1880’s, the New Hebrides group was such a disorderly no man’s-land that readers of the st instalment (PIM, March), of igh Romilly’s strange history as itish Consul there, will readily iderstand why the appointment i not fill him with, enthusiasm.

STet he was obliged to keep his d up in the conviction that the ench, who refused to accept his nmission, meant to grasp the inds if they could.

'That, of course, we can’t allow account of Australia,” he wrote, ding that if he could manage keep things going smoothly, per ps the Foreign Office would be ased. hiring his difficult time of resid :e in Noumea, when subject to sorts of pinpricks, he tried to intain friendly relations, although knew that the Governor had iplained to the British Govern nt that his appointment was a ach of faith.

'or their part the French tried ict correctly in the light of their cial reasoning—that as the irides had no national standing re could be no Consul, a condi i Romilly must publicly disagree P while writing to the Foreign :ce that the position was a farce, n one of his trips out of imea, Romilly appointed a vice sul in the group, a rough and ly trader whom he found to be ood fellow at heart. r hen. in May, 1889, he went to to talk matters over with High imissioner Thurston, he was ady writing to London that he had enough of Noumea and seriously thinking of buying a and pitching it somewhere in Hebrides. ut he had nothing but mis tunes to report—two fine mers wrecked, also some sailing s. One of the steamers was the in. of Sydney, lost on Tanna, se natives were threatening. 5 was the vessel on which he hoped to return to Port annah. Later he went to Tanna nspect the wreck. The next he tried to take from Fiji, the :ome Home, was condemned as a worthy. So he boarded HMS r d, which moved round the P on mixed commission busi hile they were waiting at Port iwich, Malekula, for the arrival leir French colleagues on board Saone, there reached them a erful story of professional ry on the isle of Ambrym

worthy of a shilling shocker.” A Corsican, named Fumaroli, had been clubbed to death and another Corsican named Lebel had been poisoned two months previously by a third Corcisan, named Rossi. It was a vendetta among neighbours, subject of the dispute being the price of coconuts.

“Lebel,” Romilly writes, “was the

first victim. Him he (Rossi) poisoned with arsenic, and whilst the process was going on wrote him daily letters, beginning, ‘Ami de mon coeur,’ etc., and asking him to dinner But he showed his hand when Lebel was dying, by standing over his bed and taunting him. He disposed of Mr. Fumaroli by paying some natives to club him with the stocks of rifles. When we arrived at this place, what struck us par ticularly was the fact that the beach was covered with huge mounds of coconuts. Rossi accounted for this by saying that they had come down in the ordinary course of trade, a statement we did not believe. It turned out two days afterwards that actually while we were there an ambush of natives was formed to shoot him while he was trading

p the nuts, but on our arrival ;y all ran away. Lebel was dug r and arsenic found in him.” leased with cruising around with lot of good fellows on HMS i ard, which presently returned to i with the murderer, Romilly re and more hated the thought F returning to “that wretched umea.” Back there he sent his ther a cutting, about an execu te advising her to skip one para ph. He was going to take passage Havannah Harbour on HMS lliope (recently escaped from the ia hurricane), but did not do so ause it might offend the French, i with his secretary, whom he p himself, “and well worth the ney,” he went back to the jrides, dryly commenting, “if re are any more unpleasant 3es in the world, I suppose I shall sent there some day.” |e had overcome Foreign Office [ his own objections against liv on a missionary or trader’s rity, and rented three rooms on : first floor of a trader’s store se and dwelling. He wrote: ie patriarchal blank has the •th, while the fifth is occupied ;hree of those female belongings spensable to a true patriarch, ever go to the stare or liquor below, as I do not wish to see host’s barman selling grog to natives.” he rough manners of the age evident from the story of a

captain ordering his drunken cox swain to be ducked in the sea.

Romilly interceded for him not to be ducked in his pea-jacket. Next morning they found three stolen watches, chains and other items, some belonging to Romilly, in the pockets of the coat Romilly had saved from a soaking.

On December 27, 1889, he received the General Consular Instructions which he had been awaiting eighteen months; and with them news of the abolition of his office.

At Havannah Harbour, one ad mirable man with whom he became friendly was the rough, bluff Aus tralian-8 cotsman McDonald, a misionary who had begun life as a lawyer’s clerk. Of other missionaries he took a less favourable view, yet his comments are of interest as, un like the traders, he had no axe to grind.

“In former years,” he says, “the natives were good savages enough . . . now, they have discarded all their original good traits as natives, have retained all the bad ones, and have added the very worst white vices. The result is an animal far worse than the worst natural savage. There are a few white men who are even lower than the natives.

The missionaries nearly all trade, and will cheat and drive as hard a bargain as my worthy landlord himself could do. They are a curious mixture of the sanctimoni ous Soctch Presbyterian with an ad

mixture of colonial cunning and ‘'cuteness.’ ”

McDonald was the shining ex ception. (Over)

Here, then, ends the unhappy story of the short-lived New Hebridean Consulate. Early in Jannary, 1890, Ramilly sailed for London. The following year he was roughing it In Mashonland, trekking with an important prospecting party to the Zambesi River and Fort Salisbury, laying the foundation of Cecil Rhodes’ empire-to-be.

In July, 1892, at the early age of 36, Romilly succumbed to one of the many attacks of malaria from which he never was entirely free from the time of his long residence in New Guinea. His consulship in the New Hebrides may appear to us thankless and farcical, but through all Romilly wrote there breathes a fine spirit; and the value of his work in New Guinea and the South Pacific should be better recognised, particularly in Australia.

He lived a far tougher life than Island officials are asked to live to-day. f Miss Fanifau Nakaora, daughter of a Fijian missionary, has begun a two years course for primary school teachers at Adelaide Teachers’

College.

Sir Raphael Cilento, one-time Director of Health in New Guinea, and, much more recently, an im portant member of WHO, spoke on the ABC’s “I Put It To You” session recently. Subject of the talk was

“Is UNO A Spent Force?” Sir Raphael’s opinion was “Yes” —and he drove home his points in spite of some curly questions by other par ticipants in the broadcast.

If Mr. and Mrs. Keith Noblett, of Wanaru cocoa plantation, a few miles out of Lae, NG, were on leave in Australia in March. Their two children, Tony and Sue, are at school in Adelaide, SA.

If Mr. R. A. Hewlett, Secretary of the Fiji Visitors’ Bureau, was speaker at a recent meeting in the

Suva Town Hall, which was ? tended by the Governor and II Garvey. Mr, Hewlett spoke onn cent developments in the Pac tourist industry.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hayfordb Texas, USA, well-known deepq fishing enthusiasts, were pa:e another visit to Fiji in March. " time they are not interested in fi ing, however, but had gone equipp with movie-equipment, cameras and experienced divers and make a film on the undersea t around Fiji.